RoarVM for Pharo and Squeak on multicore

[PhotonDemon]

Hi,

IBM recently released the RoarVM (a research project) that supports the parallel execution of Smalltalk programs on x86 compatible multicore systems and Tilera TILE64-based manycore systems for the Pharo and Squeak Smalltalks.

Read about it here:
http://astares.blogspot.com/2010/11/roarvm-pharo-and-squeak-on-multicore.html and here: https://github.com/smarr/RoarVM#readme.

Given VA Smalltalk's IBM heritage, maybe some of what is done in the RoarVM can be applied to the VA Smalltalk VM and we can have a multi-core VA Smalltalk

Lou

[marten]

Hi,

IBM recently released the RoarVM (a research project) that supports the parallel execution of Smalltalk programs on x86 compatible multicore systems and Tilera TILE64-based manycore systems for the Pharo and Squeak Smalltalks.

Sound interesting, but just read the performance numbers: they need an eight-core machine to be as fast as a single core machine ....

[PhotonDemon]

HI Marten,

I think you are referring to these numbers:

Squeak 4.2.4beta1U, MVC image, OS X 554844390 bytecodes/sec; 12213718 sends/sec
RoarVM, MVC image, OS X, 1 core 66286897 bytecodes/sec; 2910474 sends/sec
RoarVM, MVC image, OS X, 8 cores 470588235 bytecodes/sec; 19825677 sends/sec

I'm holding off on drawing any conclusions from these numbers because I'm not sure where they come from and what they were run on. I'm not even sure they were all run on the same machine. Taken alone the last two look okay as adding seven (7) cores adds a reasonable amount of processing speed. Looking at the first two, I find it hard to believe there is such a large drop in processing speed. If it is true, something is very, very wrong.

Lou